


asexual // transgender

by chemical_darkblue



Category: Original Work
Genre: Asexual Character, College, Coming Out, F/M, Self-Hatred, Sexuality, Sexuality Crisis, Trans Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-19
Updated: 2015-11-19
Packaged: 2018-05-02 10:33:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,768
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5245037
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chemical_darkblue/pseuds/chemical_darkblue
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>the one where the girl is sure she's defective and where the boy is sure he's finally himself</p>
            </blockquote>





	asexual // transgender

a·sex·u·al

āˈsekSH(əw)əl/

_adjective_

  1. without sexual feelings or associations.




-x-

For the entirety of her life, Sage had felt out of place. She didn’t belong in her family, not with being so different from her relatives. She was too quiet, she didn’t always catch on to the punch line of their jokes. Sage felt like an outcast in school. Girls wore dresses and skirts and didn’t play on anything, God forbid their clothes get dirty, and she had a distaste for dresses and adored launching herself from the swings. As she grew older, it got worse. High school was a nightmare, with girls wearing mass amounts of makeup and doing their hair every day. She kept to herself then, just like she had her entire life.

Sage discovered the real problem with her in college. She was attending a local university and majoring in psychology, minoring in American Sign Language. She had been in her dorm, her roommate on the phone across the room, ranting to a friend about how she had slept with a boy they seemed to know. She couldn’t understand why people would want to be involved in _that_ , being so intimate with another person. The very thought made her sick to her stomach.

Sage went through college feeling far more alienated than before, eventually changing her major to literature. Looking back on that decision, she was grateful. It put her in new classes and around new people, where she met him. _Him_ being a male student, with curly hair and glasses and plenty of warm sweaters named Aidan. He was quiet in the class, never really talking. She always found him watching other students, as if studying how they thought instead of listening to lectures of classic novels.

He approached her first.

She was hunched over her notes for their literature class and he sat beside her, leaning back. Everything about him screamed that he was relaxed and calm and in turn, it caused her nerves to calm. He didn’t talk to her until the third day, murmuring a joke into her ear. She remembered letting a small bubble of laughter escape her mouth and she remembered his very scent that day, which he soon admitted to be a new cologne he’d bought that morning. Aidan joined her for lunch that day and managed to keep a conversation going about what books and authors they favored. She found it refreshing to have an actual conversation with someone that wasn’t discussing trivial matters. They talked about things that actually mattered to each of them.

In months of knowing him, she became more open. She wasn’t so focused on how abnormal she was because she felt completely ordinary around him. Sage still thought she was defective as a human being and despite never voicing this concern to Aidan, he seemed to notice when her thoughts were getting the best of her. She got quiet and her eyes wouldn’t focus on much of anything for a long time. When that happened, he pulled her aside from what they were doing, whether it be studying or just lunch or a movie. He helped her gather herself again and push whatever thoughts were plaguing her to the back of her mind.

In twenty one years of living, she had never told a soul about those thoughts. Until she happened to tell Aidan. She hadn’t meant to, it just slipped. They had been discussing how preposterous a certain film was, because it was centered around intimate activities. She had mentioned that it was disgusting and she eventually told him. Sage told him how the thought of doing such a thing with another human being made her sick, she told him how she had always thought she was defective because she wasn’t interested in any of that.

Sage realized she couldn’t have chosen a better person to tell.

He comforted her, insisting it was normal to not be interested in that, that she definitely was not defective. He sat her down and they watched animated films the rest of the night and he didn’t bring it up again, not unless she instigated the conversation.

“ _I understand._ ” He said, and he did.

-x-

It isn’t uncommon for people to be uncomfortable with their bodies. They may think they’re to short or they need to lose weight. THe first time Alana experienced this feeling was when she was ten years old. It was her birthday and she was wearing a pink dress and she knew she just didn’t feel like herself. She felt _wrong_.

So she stopped wearing dresses. Alana thought maybe dresses weren’t quite her thing. So she began to favor pants and less frilly clothing. She asked her mother to allow her to cut her dark hair short. So she did, she had it cut just under her ears and it helped a little. She felt more herself.

Alana didn’t truly know _what_ was wrong with her until she was in junior high. Children were discovering more of themselves in those years and Alana was no different. She began to favor shirts and sweaters that were too big for her small frame and she felt even more at peace. But it wasn’t enough. She still felt messed up and out of place. Like any of intelligent fourteen year old, she turned to the Internet for help. She started searching how she felt until she was satisfied. After a few months of deliberation, she’d come to a decision.

Then Alana was just Aidan. Alana decided she didn’t want to be who she was when she was born, she wanted to be Aidan.

So he confronted his father about his recent decision, requesting to be called Aidan instead. He remembered being so nervous he was sweating and he remembered his father walking out of the room without a word. He remembered feeling his heart break.

His father didn’t come back after that.

He told his mother he wanted to be called Aidan and his fear was worse now, since his father had just _left_. She was kind to him, she didn’t leave. She asked if he wanted her to have the school change his name to Aidan and they let him.

When he was sixteen, he started taking pills for testosterone. Over time, he began growing taller and his bone structure in his jaw became more defined and more masculine. He’d never felt so close to comfortable with himself.

When he was eighteen, he had a surgery and came home feeling more himself than he ever had before.

His mother cried when he went to college, insisting that he be careful and to simply ignore the other students. He had nodded and said he loved her and drove off to the college he’d wanted to attend for the last three years. He found that students normally ignored the very presence of their peers and he was grateful. His literature class had a surprisingly calm air about it. The professor knew his mother and made sure to call him Aidan and he lent the boy books from time to time or gave him recommendations. He wasn’t particularly fond of any of the students, until she was put in the class.

The meeting between them wasn’t anything exceptional.

He had found her interesting. She never spoke a word during class, instead choosing to shyly discuss material with the professor after most students were gone from the room. She was quiet and all blonde hair and string bracelets on her arms. Aidan had never been a very sociable person and he had always been too shy to make many friends. It took three days to gather the courage to talk to her. When he did, he found she was just as socially inexperienced as he was, if not more.

He began spending more time with her and he realized just how lonely she had to be. To his knowledge, she never mentioned any other friends from the university or from her home and she didn’t talk about family too much. He didn't want to say he pitied her, but he did know how it felt. So he kept her company as much as he could. It was new territory to him but he made sure to always keep a conversation going. He told her his favorite authors, he always greeted her in the morning with a new joke he’d discovered the night before.

When he suggested that they rent an apartment together, Sage didn’t seem surprised. She hesitantly agreed and they went hunting for apartments. They found one nestled above a pretty little shop and Aidan _knew_ it was the one they would want. He didn’t mention that feeling to Sage, but they decided on that specific apartment anyway. They didn’t always see each other often, sometimes too busy with catching up on sleep or at classes but they made a point to have a little movie night every single weekend and Aidan chose movies every other week. It was before one of their movie nights began that it happened. They had been discussing the point behind movies that were solely based on sexual activities and she seemed upset by the idea.

“It’s disgusting.” She muttered, her voice so filled with sincerity and distaste.

In all honesty, he was grateful she came out to him. It meant that she trusted him enough with this secret she had kept for the entirety of her life. It gave him some kind of hope that maybe not everyone was like Aidan’s father, maybe not everyone would leave him like his father had.

After she told him how she felt, she was more open with him. He understood why she got so quiet sometimes. Sage expressed to him that she had always thought she was some abomination, some freak of nature and that she hated who she was. So, he tried to help her. He stopped bringing up that topic in conversation, he distracted her when she got quiet. He helped her and she was grateful.

Four months after she confided in him, he did so in her.

He explained he had always felt wrong in his body, he never felt comfortable. He told her his father had left when he told him and that Aidan was scared, he was terrified of anyone knowing because _what if they leave too?_

“I used to be Alana. Now I’m Aidan.”

“ _Okay_.”

-x-

trans·gen·der

transˈjendər,tranzˈjendər/

_adjective_

  1. denoting or relating to a person whose self-identity does not conform unambiguously to conventional notions of male or female gender.




 

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading xx. comments & kudos are appreciated.


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